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Cellulite is one of life’s biggest frustrations. While cellulite can be caused by factors such as a poor diet, dehydration, slow metabolism and excessive body fat, the truth is even the fittest Calgarians can be inflicted with the bumpy, cottage-cheese-like substance on their buttocks, legs and thighs.

How many days could you sustain yourself on a diet restricted solely to eggs, grapefruit, spinach, onions and green split pea legumes? While most people could probably last a day or two before they gave up on such a restrictive dietary regime, 57-year-old oil-and-gas analyst and author Hugh Esling maintained this $5 a day meal plan for 50 days and shed 36 pounds in the process. “It was a bit monotonous of course, but I was losing 0.72 pounds a day. When I saw the scale moving so successfully I decided I could put up with the boredom,” Esling says

If you’re worried about your waistline, put down your keys and step away — or better yet, walk, run or cycle away — from your car, says Gavin McCormack, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine. In a literature review published in Preventive Medicine this month, McCormack examines the effect driving has on motorists’ weight. The conclusion: the more time drivers spend behind the wheel, the more likely they are to be overweight or obese. Here are five things to know about McCormack’s report, Driving towards obesity. 1. Couch potato, car potato?

With July winding down, runners preparing for the fall marathon and half-marathon season are approaching some of their hardest training weeks with their longest runs just ahead of them. The same goes for triathletes and cyclists who are busy preparing for the fall competitive season.

Have you ever stopped to consider how the body stays in motion and where you get the energy to do activities? Like a car, the body needs fuel to continue to function, but how does that fuel get utilized for energy? Fat has been given a bad reputation, however, fat is not necessarily the bad guy.

Tosca Reno is living proof that age is just a number. The 54-year-old fitness model is an author, a health and wellness expert with a massive following and is also mom to four daughters. Her journey began 14 years ago, when she was 36 kg heavier, depressed and lacking in purpose. Coupled with the death of her father from heart disease and the onset of heart palpitations, Reno took a look inward and decided to try to turn things around at age 40.

Food is a source of comfort and pleasure, but there’s big money involved in keeping you slurping sweet soft drinks and gorging on fast food. Don’t blame the victim, there are a lot of people at fault for obesity.

Can we all just agree that sugar, fat, wheat gluten, dairy, meat and salt are poisons that are killing us? If you read the newspapers, browse the Internet or watch television news, you could very well draw that conclusion. And there are large numbers of people who make the avoidance of one or more of those items a central element of their lives. We are becoming a nation of food tribalists, defined not by where we live or the language we speak, but by what we don’t eat.

While the fitness and sports industry offers creative and insightful tips on training and performance, I am constantly surprised by the lack of credible information promoted about sports nutrition, supplements, how to lose body fat, gain muscle mass and “get cut.” I am fortunate to work with sports nutritionist Carrie Mullin Innes, who helps to set the record straight. She has a master’s degree in science in nutrition and is one of the few dietitians in Canada that has completed the intensive International Olympic Committee Diploma in Sports Nutrition. Here are three of the most common myths we see in our practice about sports nutrition for recreational athletes and gym goers:

Steve Siebold doesn’t think he is the most hated man in America, but his stance on obesity has generated pushback that ranges from disdain to death threats. His message is simple, but not popular: Obesity is not a disease, it is a choice and there are things you can do to change it. Like work on changing your mind in order to change your body.

We all know that physical activity is important for health. But did you know that sitting is killing you? Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterward or hit the gym.

A few years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that one of their four top priorities will be epigenetics. At that time I was curious as to how many pediatricians — both in Canada and the USA — were able to explain to the public what the science of epigenetics may involve.

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